This is the first song America heard on February 9, 1964, on the Ed Sullivan Show.
I love this song for one big reason. John Lennon plays a hell of a rhythm in the background. He makes it sound so deceptively easy but it’s not. I need to start focusing on some of their earlier music instead of just their late sixties tracks. I have some readers that just like their early stuff and others who like just the mid or later. I love both because it’s the same band… early, middle, or late… both have great melodies but just different tones of instruments.
What is great about the early part is their harmonies. When I played in a band we didn’t do many Beatles songs although they were being requested. If we did we did a later song like Get Back without those harmonies. It takes a band with 2 or better yet 3 singers who can do those harmonies. Not easy to do when you are teen playing instruments at the same time. We stuck with Rolling Stones and CCR songs without the complicated harmonies. Now we couldn’t do I Am The Walrus either because of the craziness of the instruments.
This song was on the first Beatles album I listened to…the American version of With The Beatles named Meet The Beatles with their faces in shadow. We had a clubhouse and my older cousin bought the album and I was hooked…for life. It’s hard not to get hooked by the songs.
On February 9th, 1964, an estimated 73 million viewers watched this much-hyped young Liverpool band perform five songs ‘live’ from CBS-TV Studio 50 in New York City. Capital Records kept rejecting Beatles songs until I Want To Hold Your Hand. A few radio stations started to play the song and soon Capitol realized that they could not reject them anymore. They didn’t like British records and only would release novelty British songs in America. When they started to get behind Meet The Beatles the dam burst.
They chose All My Loving to start the set and made an immediate good first impression and kept that huge television audience tuned in for the whole show. What separated the Beatles from other bands? The thousands of hours they already had under their belt from rocking in Hamburg, The Cavern, and all around Europe. At one point they very well could have had more hours on stage than any other rock band. Another thing was the quantity and more important the quality of the songwriting of the band that would continue to their end.
It’s a Lennon-McCartney song but mostly McCartney. The song peaked at #1 in Canada and New Zealand. It surprisingly only peaked at #45 on the Billboard 100 in 1964.
Paul McCartney: “I don’t know that I was thinking specifically of Jane Asher when I wrote this, though we were courting. It’s probably more of a reflection on what our lives were like then – leaving behind family and friends to go on tour and experience all these new adventures.”
All My Loving
Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Tomorrow I’ll miss you
Remember I’ll always be true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my lovin’ to you
I’ll pretend that I’m kissing
The lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my lovin’ to you
All my lovin’, I will send to you
All my lovin’, darlin’, I’ll be true
Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Tomorrow I’ll miss you
Remember I’ll always be true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my loving to you
All my lovin’, I will send to you
All my lovin’, darlin’, I’ll be true
All my lovin’, all my lovin’
Ooh ooh, all my lovin’, I will send to you
When I hear this song, it reminds me of just how great the Beatles were at songwriting and harmonizing. My all time favorite rock singers includes John Lennon…this song demonstrates why. His voice could cut through anything and is always sharp…and has been widely imitated but it wasn’t liked by John himself who notoriously wanted it covered up on recordings.
The song was on Meet The Beatles…the first Beatle album I ever listened to. The vocals were a three part harmony sung by Harrison, Lennon and McCartney. The song was written by Lennon and McCartney.
This was the first Beatles composition that was commented on by a music critic. William Mann wrote in The London Times December 27, 1963, that the song had “pandiatonic clusters.” Musicians and parents who knew something about music knew there was something more than just hair with this band. The songs they were hearing were more sophisticated than the regular pop songs at the time.
Capitol of Canada released a couple of unique singles of their own creation in early 1964 to capitalize on the success of Beatlemania in that country. The second of which was “All My Loving” paired with “This Boy” as its flip side.
The song peaked at #1 in Canada and #53 in the Billboard 100.
John Lennon:“Just my attempt at writing one of those three-part harmony Smokey Robinson songs,”
From Songfacts
John Lennon wrote this song. One of his early compositions, it is seemingly simple, but very clever. The song contains only a few notes, but the space between the notes is filled by the arrangements. It’s the same technique you hear in Liszt’s “Liebestraum,” the piano piece in Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze and in Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”
George Harrison: “It was John (Lennon) trying to do Smokey (Robinson).”
The Beatles performed this on their second Ed Sullivan Show appearance – Feb 16, 1964. They played six songs on the show that night, and this provided a slow change of pace from the uptempo songs like “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” The Beatles were just beginning their breakthrough in America and got a huge audience from the show.
This was used in Ringo’s big scene in The Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night. The version used in the film is an instrumental renamed “Ringo’s Theme (This Boy),” and without any harmony singing.
This was one of the first songs on which The Beatles used a 4-track recorder.
Artists to cover this song include Tom Baxter, David Bowie, Sean Lennon, George Martin, Delbert McClinton and The Nylons
George taking a stroll down memory lane:
This Boy
That boy Took my love away Though he’ll regret it someday But this boy wants you back again
That boy Isn’t good for you Though he may want you, too This boy wants you back again
Oh, and this boy would be happy Just to love you, but oh my That boy won’t be happy ‘Til he’s seen you cry
This boy Wouldn’t mind the pain Would always feel the same If this boy gets you back again
This helped start the modern rock era. No British rock act had dominated in America before the Beatles. Cliff Richard had tried and failed but with this song and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show…The Beatles kicked down the door and started the British Invasion and the Stones, Kinks, and Who would soon follow.
Rock and Roll can be divided up into two eras… pre Beatles and post Beatles. Everything would change after this. I bought an amp from a long time country studio musician and he told me that the day after he heard this on Ed Sullivan the world changed. Not just music but everything…music, thoughts, aspirations, and hair of course. Within weeks of this song hitting number 1 there were bands forming in every neighborhood in America. Guitars were bought, hair lengths were being tested, and a huge urge to learn everything British.
I always hold this song up to why vinyl is the way to listen to some records at times. All the CD versions I’ve heard of this song sound rather flat…when I hear the 45 vinyl single the song jumps out at you. It changes the whole dynamic of the song. After hearing the single the way it was meant to be heard… you can see why this song changed a lot of things. It was maybe the most important single they ever released…it may have had the biggest impact at least in America.
It is said that John and Paul wrote this with an America’s sound in mind. They must have guessed right. This song preceded the Beatles trip here at number 1. Lennon liked the melody so much that he talked about doing something with it again til his death.
This was played on the Washington, DC radio station WWDC before it was released in America by a DJ named Carroll Baker, who got the record from a stewardess. It was a huge hit with his listeners and prompted Capitol Records to release the song ahead of schedule – they planned to issue it on January 13, 1964.
The Beatles were in Paris and celebrated madly when they found out they were #1 in America. They came to America for the first time on February 7, 1964, greeted at the airport by screaming fans. “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was the #1 song in the country at that time, and it stayed on top for seven weeks, until their next single, the re-released “She Loves You,” replaced it.
Bob Dylan thought the line “I can’t hide” was “I get high,” and a reference to marijuana. He was surprised to learn they had never tried pot, and became part of Beatles lore when he introduced them to it.
At times John Lennon realized the crowds The Beatles played to were so loud they really couldn’t hear them sing, so sometimes instead of singing the line, “I want to hold your hand,” he would say, “I want to hold your gland” as a reference to women’s breasts…and people wonder why Lennon is my favorite Beatle!
The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, Canada, UK, New Zealand, and probably on Mars also in 1964.
From Songfacts
This was the first Beatles song to catch on in America. In 1963, the Beatles became stars in England, but couldn’t break through in the US. They couldn’t get a major label to distribute their singles in America, so their first three singles there, “Please Please Me,” “From Me to You” and “She Loves You,” were issued on small labels and flopped, even though they were hits in England.
Late in 1963, American news outlets started reporting on this British sensation, and interest in the group started to rise. Capitol Records took notice and released “I Want To Hold Your Hand” Stateside on December 26. The song rose up the chart, and on February 1, 1964, hit #1. It sold better in the first 10 days of release in the US than any other British single, and remains the best-selling Beatles single in the United States, moving over 12 million copies.
Conquering the US was, and still is, a big deal for British bands. Many groups that are huge in the UK (Oasis, Blur) never really catch on in America. • John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote this in Jane Asher’s basement. Asher was an actress who became Paul’s first high-profile girlfriend. After appearing in several movies, TV shows and stage productions, Asher became an authority on baking, and has her own business selling party cakes and supplying baking and decorating equipment. She and Paul broke up in 1968.
Jane had a brother named Pete Asher who teamed up with Gordon Waller to form the duo Peter & Gordon; McCartney wrote their hit single “A World Without Love.” Pete recalled in a 2010 interview with Gibson.com the two Beatles penning this song at his home: “My mother had a practice room that she used to give private oboe lessons when she wasn’t teaching at The Royal Academy, where she was a professor. There was just a piano, and an upright chair and a sofa. Paul used that room to write in, from time to time. One afternoon John came over, while I was upstairs in my room. The two of them were in the basement for an hour or so, and Paul called me down to listen to a song they had just finished. I went downstairs and sat on the sofa, and they sat side by side, on the piano bench. That’s where they played ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ for the first anywhere. They asked me what I thought. I said, ‘I think it’s very good.'” [laughs] •
The Beatles performed this on their first two Ed Sullivan Show appearances, which took place February 9 and 16, 1964. There was already a media frenzy around The Beatles, which was amplified when millions saw them on Sullivan’s show. The Beatles were booked for the show before they had a hit in the US, so they actually got paid less than many other guests for their appearance. •
• This was one of John Lennon’s favorite Beatles songs. It starts with a falling melody, which is typical of Lennon’s songwriting, and ends with a cadence with a quarter-interval: “I’ll think you’ll understand.” That quarter-interval cadence you can even hear in Lennon’s first bit of “From Me to You” and in “Tomorrow Never Knows.” McCartney most often uses second-intervals. Also typically Lennon is the sudden octave-run, “Haaaaand…” The same octave-run you can hear in the end of the middle part in Lennon’s “Please Please Me”: “To reason with youuuuuu…” Also note that the beginning of the melody in the middle part is almost the same melody as the beginning of the middle part in “Don’t Let Me Down.”
Two parody groups made answer songs to this in 1964: “I’ll Let You Hold My Hand” by The Bootles and “Yes, You Can Hold My Hand” by The Beatlettes.
This was the first Beatles song recorded on 4-track equipment. Some of their first songs were in mono.
The Beatles also cut a German version called “Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand.” They picked up some German while playing The Star Club in Hamburg in 1962.
In the 1960s it wasn’t uncommon for British stars to record new versions of their hits in other languages. The idea was to increase airplay on continental stations and to get a hit before an indigenous artist recorded a version in the local tongue. On January 29, 1964, The Beatles went into the Pathé & Marconi Studios in Paris and recorded “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” (“Sie Liebt Dich”) in German. The lyrics had been hurriedly translated by a Luxembourger named Camillo Felgen, who was then a program director at Radio Luxembourg. As well, apart from their recording of “My Bonnie” in the early ’60s, this was the only time The Beatles recorded in another language. In addition it was the sole occasion on which they recorded outside London.
When this hit #1 in the US, it was the first time a British group topped the chart there since 1962, when “Telstar” by The Tornados did it. Until The Beatles came along, most British groups that had hits in America came and went pretty quickly. The Beatles kicked off the British Invasion, leading to a lengthy occupation on the charts for acts like The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Who as well as The Beatles.
It was the youth who discovered The Beatles, and while young people can be easily manipulated through hype and image, in the case of The Beatles it was the music that drew them in. An American girl Sanda Stewart, 15 years old in spring 1964 (according to Hunter Davies in his book Beatles) said: “I was one day in a shop with my mother when I suddenly heard ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ on the car radio. Such a special sound! I could never stop thinking about it. No song has effected me on that way. Several other girls in school had reacted in the same way. We saw the Beatles on photos and thought they were ugly. But their music was fantastic.”
This song was used in the movie Across the Universe at a much slower tempo.
A fairly straightforward and simple Beatles song, this one still has some musical complexity that foreshadowed what was to come. “The middle eight of that does something,” Tony Banks of Genesis explained. “The way the key changes at that point is something I hadn’t heard before.”
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Oh yeah, I’ll tell you somethin’ I think you’ll understand When I say that somethin’ I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand
Oh please, say to me You’ll let me be your man And please, say to me You’ll let me hold your hand Now, let me hold your hand I want to hold your hand
And when I touch you I feel happy inside It’s such a feelin’ that my love I can’t hide I can’t hide I can’t hide
Yeah, you got that somethin’ I think you’ll understand When I say that somethin’ I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand
And when I touch you I feel happy inside It’s such a feelin’ that my love I can’t hide I can’t hide I can’t hide
Yeah, you got that somethin’ I think you’ll understand When I feel that somethin’ I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand I want to hold your hand
In 1975 my friends and cousin had a clubhouse that was an old horse barn. We had a record player, a lantern, and a one-armed bandit. My cousin played the Meet The Beatles album and me… being a Monkee fan soaked it up and it started a lifelong love for The Beatles.
My first favorite Beatle song was It Won’t Be Long…then this one came in second at the time. George wrote this when he was down with the flu in a hotel room in the Northeast of England. It was the first song he wrote……technically he did have partial credit on the instrumental Cry For A Shadow.
Is it George’s best song? Of course not but it fits in well with the early Beatles and it gets overlooked. If you think about it…”Don’t Bother me” is so George and his attitude at times. I always really liked it…the overall feel of it is cool. It was a very good attempt at his first song.
George Harrison:“I don’t think it’s a particularly good song… It mightn’t even be a song at all, but at least it showed me that all I needed to do was keep on writing, and then maybe eventually I would write something good.”
Tom Petty:“I thought it was just the coolest song, like nothing I’d heard in rock,” Petty said in 2014 “I’d say, ‘Well, I like it. A lot. If you did that today, I’d say it was really good.’ And he’d go, ‘Well, you’d be wrong.'”
The Smithereens did a great job covering this song.
From Songfacts
This was George Harrison’s first recorded song. It was his response to critics who claimed he was not an important member of the group because he did not write songs.
A Harrison-penned song would not appear again until the 1965 album Help!. That would be “You Know What To Do.”
This song has a darker, more pessimistic mood that was uncommon of The Beatles main sound, but would come to be Harrison’s trademark stamp. This is actually part of what made the Beatles’ formula work: McCartney was the chirpy, positive one, and Harrison was the melancholic counterpart.
Years later these were sold off at one of the London auction houses. This song in it’s very earliest stages is available on bootleg and features George working the music and lyrics out as he goes along. George stated, “I wrote the song as an exercise to see if I could write a song. I was sick in bed. Maybe that’s why it turned out to be ‘Don’t Bother Me.'”
For your information, the photography technique for the cover of With The Beatles, in which the Fab Four’s headshots hover in a half-moon, light-and-shadow effect, is called “chiaroscuro.” It’s an Italian word to describe the Renaissance technique of dramatically contrasted lighting effects in oil paintings.
This was the first song on Side 2 of Meet The Beatles, their first album released in the US. With The Beatles was their second UK release.
Don’t Bother Me
Since she’s been gone I want no one to talk to me It’s not the same but I’m to blame, it’s plain to see
So go away, leave me alone, don’t bother me I can’t believe that she would leave me on my own It’s just not right when every night I’m all alone
I’ve got no time for you right now, don’t bother me I know I’ll never be the same if I don’t get her back again Because I know she’ll always be the only girl for me
But ’til she’s here please don’t come near, just stay away I’ll let you know when she’s come home Until that day Don’t come around, leave me alone, don’t bother me
I’ve got no time for you right now, don’t bother me I know I’ll never be the same if I don’t get her back again Because I know she’ll always be the only girl for me
But ’til she’s here please don’t come near, just stay away I’ll let you know when she’s come home Until that day
Don’t come around, leave me alone, don’t bother me Don’t bother me Don’t bother me Don’t bother me Don’t bother me
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